Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset Review

Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset Review

Steelseries Overview

“The SteelSeries Shift World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™ Edition Keyset presents gamers with predefined game mods and an intuitive layout of the most common commands, actions and emotes. The Keyset helps groups run more smoothly through its ability to mark targets for added group and raid functionality. The SteelSeries Shift Keyset provides new functionality that reflects changes that have come over the game since the last expansion. Its labeled and color coded keys, together with the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm artwork and functionality, will immerse players into the world of Azeroth and help to accelerate game mastery.”

Features

(*Requires SteelSeries Shift.)
• One-touch macros for raiding and PvP gameplay
• The ability to mark targets for added group and raid functionality
• Extended raid functionality to better manage raid groups as well as easily find a raid group to join
• New functions to reflect World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: “Exit Vehicle”, “Raid Browser” and “Set Focus”
• Intuitively grouped chat commands; enlarged keys for most commonly used chat commands for easier access
• All commands are labeled and color coded on all keys
• SteelSeries Engine software allows full customization of each key
• Compatible with all versions of World of Warcraft

Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset

If you’re not familiar with the keysets for the Steelseries Shift Keyboard, many different keysets for different games can be bought separately and attached onto the Shift Keyboard. The keyset is foldable and once opened lays on top of the keyboard and secures in place.

To see the review of the actual Steelseries Shift Keyboard...

The graphics on the Cataclysm Keyset features the main latest boss, which is the large dark red dragon, that isn’t currently out yet and will be arriving soon next year in another expansion pack. The Cataclysm keyset is very similar to the standard shift MMO gaming keyset, of which you can see below, the differences are obviously in the graphics on the products, and on the keyset extension (right hand side), instead of having hotkeys labelled A1, A2, A3 and so on,  the WOW keyset is purposely built for the game specifically and has key commands that run along the top of the keyboard.

Note: The Steelseries Shift keyboard takes up 2 x USB2.0 ports.

Rosewill RK-9000RE Mechanical Keyboard Review

Rosewill RK-9000RE

We have recently been reviewing various products from Rosewill lately. They are a division of Newegg if you didn’t know and they make various computer components (usually entry to mid-level type products). They aren’t really known for their keyboards but I have the pleasure today in reviewing one of their more recent keyboards. I will be looking in close detail on the Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000RE. As the label says it’s a mechanical keyboard which will gain a lot of attention because mechanical keyboards have better response and an overall better feel when using them for casual or hardcore usage. I myself am a fan of mechanical keyboards as well and I can’t wait to get started on this review. Let’s take a look and see what Rosewill has to offer.

• Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000RE
• 1 x PS/2 to Mini USB Cable
• 1 x USB to Mini USB Cable

Aesthetics

The keyboard layout is pretty standard in terms of the sizes of the shift, enter, ctrl, and space bar keys. There are no extra keys for macroing unfortunately but since this is just labeled as a mechanical keyboard, I can’t really mark them down for not adding them. However, I am just biased to macro keys or macro capabilities so I always hope for them in a keyboard. The F1 through F9 keys resembled old fashioned keyboards which may interest users that like that type of size since most keyboards have the smaller sized function keys. I actually like the smaller function keys but these aren’t too bad as well. On the rear there is a plug for a mini usb cord and they give two types of cables so that this keyboard can work for old and new computers alike. This makes it very versatile and appeal to the more general public.

Cherry MX Switch

The Cherry MX Switch is a feature that Rosewill has added to their mechanical keyboard that allows for simultaneous key presses. All mechanical keyboards usually have some form of Anti-ghosting keys or simultaneous key actions since casual and hardcore enthusiasts need a keyboard that won’t skip a key when they are typing keys simultaneously. This switch will allow up to 104-key presses with a 50 million click life cycle for each key. The 104-key presses are just amazing because most keyboards I have reviewed would offer like 20-50 but I haven’t really seen above 100 too often. I don’t see how you would ever need to press that many but the ability to have that many will ensure your keyboard won’t ever miss a beat. And the 50million click life cycle for the keys is definitely a great addition because consumers will buy the keyboard knowing it will last long since most people don’t want to keep replacing their keyboards too often.

Laser Printing on Each Keycap

Laser printing on a keyboard is definitely something new to me. I don’t know if any other keyboard manufacturer does this but it’s worth taking note of. This will help people that want to use this keyboard for long periods of time and to those who don’t clean their keyboard often. The oils from our fingers can build up on our keyboards and mice and usually leaves some residue that can lead to erasing the ink on standard keyboard keys. But with Rosewill’s Laser Printing, you won’t have to worry about the keys and feel free to use this keyboard as long as you want to.